Storyscape - Workspace Unlimited

THEY
WATCH THE
2006-2009
Commisioned by the Experimental Media and Performance Art
Center, New York
They Watch is an immersive art installation with virtual characters
literally watching visitors. Several duplicates of the virtual
characters – one man, one woman, and both portraits of the
artists – surround and interact with visitors who are tracked as
they move about the physical space and even projected into the
virtual space. Years of research and development with game
technology have resulted in a 360° audio-visual environment,
exploiting a 15-meter-wide panoramic screen and a 32-channel
sound system. The subtle collaboration of the real and virtual agents
and environments conflate to engender a Hybrid Space where the
observer becomes the observed.
Visitors’ movements activate visual cues and affect the characters’
spontaneous, unscripted behaviors so that the installation’s
visual and sonic compositions are uniquely influenced by the
visit. Figuratively wearing a virtual camera causes the on-screen
characters to approach and to retreat, analogously altering the
soundtrack; characters that, as visitors will come to discover, are
aware of their presence… They watch. They also whisper under their
breath, sounds that surround visitors and, from exceptionally close
to the screen, even seem to emanate from inside the visitor’s mind.
UNCANNY EXPERIENCE OF BEING OBSERVED AT THE VAGUE INTERSECTION OF REAL AND SIMULATED SPACES DISORIENTS AND ENGAGES VISITORS.
THE PIECE BECOMES A COMPOSITION IN MOVEMENT WHEREBY NON-LINEAR BLENDS OF REAL AND VIRTUAL FORCE VISITORS TO CONSIDER PERSPECTIVE,
AGENCY, AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN AUTHENTIC AND IMAGINED AS THEY WATCH.
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